Zaibach's Fate Child
by Lady Devonna
Summary: Ch.3. Kinda plotless, mostly chara development. Kiyoshi has found happiness and companionship, but will it last? And what is this sweet child's relationship with Dilandau?
1. Default Chapter

Zaibach's Fate Child A/N: As I'm sure everyone can tell, the main character here is Dilandau, or rather will be. There's a reason he has a different first name. I promise. And this isn't an AU. How Dilandau has a personal past when we all know he's Celena will be explained in due time. So there.  
Part 1: Kiyoshi  
1  
Abandoned Kisho Albatou sighed tragically as he trudged down the long-neglected forest road. The tiny hand in his large, clumsy one seemed limper and colder at every moment. Finally, he could bare it no longer and stopped. "Do you feel any better?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Do you want to rest?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Do you want me to carry you?"  
  
"No."  
  
"For the gods' sake, what-?"  
  
"I want Mama."  
  
"You know she's not coming back!" To hide that he was on the verge of tears, Kisho scooped his tiny brother into his arms and started walking again, at a grueling pace. Soon, he had to stop. "It's late. Go to sleep." He hated to be so short, but frustration with the world in general spilled over at his helpless sibling's expense.  
  
Exhausted mentally and physically, Kisho was asleep in minutes, snoring uproariously. Kiyoshi looked on enviously, wishing he could abandon the cares of the day for the dreamless, restful bliss his idolized brother enjoyed. But he'd never dared to let himself sleep deeply, for fear he might not awaken. And when he did sleep, only nightmares greeted him.  
  
"Mama." His high, miniscule voice was almost inaudible. Almost two moons, and it still didn't seem real. It was all a dream, or a misunderstanding. She couldn't be gone. He would wake up tomorrow and she'd pick him up carefully, reprimand him for being out so late, and lay him carefully into hers and father's big feather bed with a cup of hot broth.  
  
At the same time, he knew she was gone forever. He and Kisho had watched, horrified and helpless, as she had been raped and stabbed to death by their uncle, her brother. He'd almost died himself, and the mere memory stirred up an erratic enough heartbeat to worry him for a minute.  
  
Swallowing, trying to ignore the pain in his chest even as the pulse returned as close to normal as ever, Kiyoshi looked across at Kisho. His beloved brother was all he had in the world now. They had never really been especially close, and Kiyoshi had always worshipped Kisho, and hated him as much.  
  
Kiyoshi had known always that he could never match other children physically. It was on pure will he'd survived this long. A constant, dragging weakness pervaded his every memory. Kisho, a master of all trades and Jack of none (to quote Mama), was almost superhumanly strong. The bitter, selfish, timid character an isolated, sickly child couldn't avoid seemed far worse in contrast to Kisho's calm temperament and sweet nature. Kiyoshi knew he was smarter than his brother by quite a bit, stronger willed and more adaptable, he'd always been in Kisho's shadow. Envy was always his principle feeling towards his athletic sibling.  
  
Staring into the stars, brooding ceaselessly, Kiyoshi felt something go out of him. The one thing he could really claim was an indomitable will to survive. It had gotten him through more heart attacks than he remembered, through taunting from older boys and simpering pity from insincere adults. Even his mother's death. But now, watching the stars quickly engulfed by a fast approaching rain cloud, listening to Kisho's snores, and feeling his heart struggle as ever, that will went out of him. The life he'd clung to lost all meaning in a split second and took his essence with it.  
  
***  
  
"Kiyoshi! Kiyoshi, wake up! Please!"  
  
At Kisho's frantic voice, he tried to rouse himself, and succeeded to a degree. He was sitting up, but not breathing very well and could barely hold his eyes open.  
  
"Don't you dare die on me, twerp! Just. Don't!" Kiyoshi found himself swept into Kisho's strong arms. Are you cold? Hungry? Don't die. You're all I have. I promised Mom. Kiyoshi!"  
  
Kiyoshi couldn't speak. There was some herb Mama had used when things like this happened, but he didn't know dandelions from mandrake and neither did Kisho.  
  
Kisho set off at almost a run. "I'm finding someone who can help you. Hold on."  
  
Hold on to what? Kiyoshi vaguely wanted to stay alive, if only for his brother's sake, but he doubted there were many people who knew what to do with a child bearing a heart half the size of a normal one, and, even if there was such a one, that he/she could be found in time to do anything for his weak, rapid heartbeat.  
  
Lulled oddly by the strained beat, he drifted into the kind of sleep one seldom awakes from.  
***  
  
"Ki.sho?"  
  
"Not exactly, little one."  
  
The voice that answered was soft and quivery, and completely new to him. As Kiyoshi's eyes flickered open (and he noted in surprise that his heart had settled down a little), he felt a vague sense of loss he couldn't explain. The woman standing above his bed (was it really a bed?) was oldish, gray haired and thin, but looked spry enough. He would have been very happy to see a nice old lady apparently taking care of him if he hadn't been completely lost. "Where's Kisho? Where's my brother?"  
  
"I don't know, just now. He promised to write you."  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"Oh, of course, you've been asleep three days." She sat on the edge of the bed and pushed a stray lock of hair behind his ear. "My name is Chizu Risako. I met your brother stumbling along almost as sick as you a few days ago. He found out I ran an orphanage and begged me to take you on. He didn't have to, of course. He stayed two days himself, but felt he wasn't doing any good. I think he didn't want to see you die. He did say he'd write, and send for you if he found steady work."  
  
Kiyoshi gasped weakly and covered his face in his hands. "He promised."  
  
Chizu seemed to understand. "He did the best he could. Don't blame him."  
  
"He promised me! He promised Mama!"  
  
"Promised what?"  
  
"He wouldn't leave me."  
  
"Shh." Chizu wiped a tear off his cheek. "I think he'll come back for you. You should rest a while, and then we'll see about you playing with the others." She got up quietly and slipped out.  
  
Kiyoshi cried himself to sleep. Kisho, you promised!  
  
A/N: Well? Okay, it's a little alternately sickly sweet and darkly neurotic. It should improve. Constructive criticism appreciated! 


	2. Among Friends

2  
Among Friends  
  
The next morning, Kiyoshi was pleased to discover he felt better than usual. It wasn't just being tucked into a warm bed with a reasonably steady heartbeat. He couldn't quite put his finger on it, but something felt right with the world that hadn't in a long time. He stretched luxuriously and sat up.  
  
The straw of his mattress rustled slightly as he moved, and Chizu was immediately at his bedside. "You're awake? Good, you feel better. Come on." She grabbed his hand and hauled it out of bed. "Hurry it up. You're not an invalid yet."  
  
Kiyoshi followed for what he assumed was his own good, rather scandalized. Throughout his life, he'd been treated like he was made of spun glass. Even his neighbors' bullying children had been careful never to do anything that might set off his heart. Chizu, apparently, wasn't quite the cookie- dispensing old grandmother he'd thought.  
  
"Here we are." Kiyoshi started. He'd been so engrossed in his musings he hadn't noticed their progress. When Chizu threw open the door, he was unprepared for and momentarily blinded by the sudden stream of sunlight. When his eyes adjusted, he was amazed by the scene before him.  
  
The door opened up to a huge, green lawn, dotted with large, leafy trees and enclosed by a low white fence. The northeast corner was occupied by an assortment of wooden scraps nailed together to support swings and a slide with plenty of room to climb around aimlessly. Wherever two trees were close enough together, a hammock was strung between them. Close to the house stood two large tables painted the kaleidoscope of random, clashing blotches of color only a sizeable troop of small children with paintbrushes can produce. The southeast corner held a picturesque pond, covered in water lilies. The middle of the enclosure was a large, open field. Around the fence and on the patio occupied by the tables were several chairs, looking made for short legged, slight occupants. Most striking, to Kiyoshi, were the thirty-odd boys and girls between about two and perhaps fourteen years swarming over the whole place.  
  
"Well, go on." Chizu gave him a little push, and he didn't move. She sighed and crouched down so their eyes were level. "Everyone's always told you you couldn't, haven't they?"  
  
"Eh, excuse me? Told me I couldn't what?"  
  
"Listen to you. You even talk like a little adult. Look, go out there, make some friends, get into mischief, be the little boy you are, and forget your heart for the time being. If you feel tired, stop, but it'll do you more good this way. Now go. I'll be out in about an hour and a half with lunch."  
  
"Yes, ma'am." He took a few tentative steps into the yard, and the door slammed decisively behind him. A few heads turned towards him, but their owners returned to their games without interest. Despite the pep talk, Kiyoshi felt no desire to join them. When had anyone ever wanted to be around him, and why would it be different here? He wandered over to the pond.  
  
He stared between the lily pads into the water. Fat, sparkling koi swam lazily along among a few turtles and perhaps the odd crab. Kiyoshi had always had a bit of a soft spot for anything that lived in the water. Not only had he grown up along the ocean, but there was a family legend that the Albatous were descended from a mermaid, captured by pirates who had wanted to rape and sell her, then rescued by a dark skinned Draconian. When father was still alive he'd often told his sons that the tale was ridiculous, a mermaid is an animal and couldn't interbreed with even a junin, and there was certainly no demon Draconian blood in the line. It was undeniably true that children born to the family almost always developed an inexplicable interest, almost obsession, with either the sea or sky. Kiyoshi was among the latter, but he still rather liked water creatures.  
  
He noticed a metal cup, bolted to the rock, which seemed to contain tiny shrimp. On impulse, he took a pinch and sprinkled it into the water. The koi immediately swarmed around the specks as they sank into the pond. He almost laughed at the spectacle.  
  
There was a small wicker bench near the water's edge. It seemed a better place than many, so Kiyoshi settled into it. It was sort of nice here.  
  
"Hi."  
  
Kiyoshi jumped up and spun around. The speaker who had startled him so profoundly was a small, skinny boy, about his own age, with jet-black hair, enormous amber eyes, and ears and a tail to rival any cat's. "You're sure jumpy."  
  
"Yeah. .Hi."  
  
"You're new, right? Chizu told us there was someone new today."  
  
"Yeah." Kiyoshi was half enjoying, half confused by an entirely new experience: someone being nice to him.  
  
"What's your name?"  
  
"Kiyoshi Albatou."  
  
"I'm Akiyama. Wanna play with us?"  
  
"Play?"  
  
Akiyama gave him a long, penetrating look. "You had it hard, didn't you?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"We all did, sorta, but you didn't have a nice life, didja?"  
  
"No."  
  
"Come on. Play with us." Akiyama grabbed his arm and squeezed slightly. "It's okay. It's nice here." Kindly but firmly, the little catboy led him over to three others. One of the boys was a few years older than the others, with very pale blonde hair and haunted eyes that seemed to look into somewhere long ago and far away. The girl next to him looked like a specter out of one of the ghastly ghost stories Kisho used to tell him: pale as death, scarred all over, tangled, matted hair spilling all across her face, and one hand cut off. She couldn't have been older than he was! The last of the three was a wispy, slinking, almost invisible specimen of indeterminate sex and maybe humanity.  
  
"This is Kiyoshi, everybody."  
  
"Hi." said the first boy vacantly, still gazing into whatever nonexistent universe so captivated him.  
  
The girl grunted.  
  
"Hello." floated a vague sigh from the last one.  
  
Akiyama motioned to the soft grass, and Kiyoshi sat down. "So, what happened to yours? Your family, I mean."  
  
Kiyoshi was about to refuse, but sensed this was some kind of ritual. "Father died when I was very little. He and some friends went out during a storm, and the boat went down. Mama was a seamstress, which didn't make much, so my oldest sister had to go into the city to work. She sent us money for a while, then disappeared. We got on okay, but then. Mama died. My uncle killed her. I don't know why. My brother and I traveled for a little while, but I have a bad heart, so he left me here." It sort of felt good to summarize it so neatly. "What about you guys?" Initial reluctance aside, he was easily warming to companionship now that it was offered.  
  
Akiyama swallowed. Kiyoshi wasn't the only one who's life had forced him to grow up too quickly. The junin's manner bespoke an old, heavy soul in a young body. "My tribe was living in the forest and tried to stop some humans from overhunting. It was hurting all of us. They came back and. they killed everyone. Two girls also made it, but they left the day before Chizu found me."  
  
The girl smiled crookedly as she began. "I'm Tora. My Dad was a crazy drunk. He killed my mother when I was little. He tried to kill me. Chizu rescued me." She didn't seem to have anything else to say, and her eyes held a glint of what might have been insanity.  
  
The blond boy seemed to come out of his stupor, but he still didn't come across as all there. "My name's Kin. I don't remember parents. I lived alone, in the forest a little ways from here. Chizu found me last year."  
  
"Amida is my name." The words didn't exactly seem to be sound. Kiyoshi couldn't help feel they were spoken inside his head. "My family left me when they realized I wasn't human."  
  
"What?"  
  
"He's a changeling," Akiyama explained.  
  
"Not exactly. My mother gave birth to me. I remember it. But I seem to be some spirit that entered her. Angel or demon, I don't know. It wasn't so bad. I don't need to eat often and," he. she. it paused to hold up a gray- tinged hand that was definitely translucent around the edges, "Weather doesn't affect me much. But it's much better here."  
  
"It really is?" Still digesting what he'd heard, Kiyoshi managed the first real smile he could remember ever having. "That's good."  
  
A/N: Well, it's going somewhere. I don't know where, yet (or, rather, I do, but it's not readily apparent to all of you, haha). Please review. It feeds my poor, helpless ego. 


	3. The Milk of Paradise

3  
The Milk of Paradise  
  
Akiyama gave Kiyoshi a minute to process the tales, then stood back up, looking pleased about something. "Let's go play!"  
  
Kin was after him in a matter of seconds, and Tora got up to follow after a moment's deliberation. Kiyoshi, still not entirely clear on the "play" concept, didn't move. Inadvertantly, he glanced across at Amida, who was still sitting cross-legged on the grass. Eventually, he (Kiyoshi had decided to think of him as a he until further information was available) returned Kiyoshi's perplexed stare.  
  
"Do I scare you?"  
  
"Uh."  
  
"I wouldn't blame you if I did. I scare me." He stood slowly, and Kiyoshi got a real look at him. At first glance, he hardly seemed anything but a normal, if rather sickly, child. He was tall and scrawny, with a sinuous but wan look and a rather gray complexion. Gradually, one noticed he seemed to be floating a few inches off the ground (or maybe not.) and around the edges he looked like a pen drawing that had run a little. His hair (a rather nondescript shade of blondish-brownish-reddish-grayish-whitish) was a little long and untidy, but seemed to blow against the light breeze. His face was blank, his eyes large, black, and dead (they didn't seem to reflect light). Only half visible, maybe not even there, a tiny pair of horns poked from the top of his head. [A/N: For those who don't know, that's a characteristic of an oni, a Japanese ogre/spirit/.thingy; also worn by Princess Lum]  
  
For all that, Kiyoshi found he wasn't at all afraid. "You don't."  
  
Amida looked surprised, and his face looked like it wasn't used to having an expression. "Really?"  
  
"I'm bad at lying."  
  
A smile crept across Amida's quiet features. "Let's go join the others." This time, Kiyoshi followed without hesitation.  
  
Kin, Akiyama, and Tora were chasing each other in circles around the swings. Kiyoshi stopped to figure out what was going on, remembered watching a few of his neighbors play tag, and sighed. He'd tried to join once, and had passed out in a matter of minutes. He contented himself observing. Kin was the fastest by far, not just because of his legs but due to an extraordinary speed. Tora stumbled often and limped, but kept at it doggedly. Akiyama occasionally dropped to all fours and seemed to make better, if awkward, progress this way. Amida muttered something to himself and joined in. He glided more than he ran.  
  
Kiyoshi felt something in him snap. Chizu's words came back to him. "Go out there, make some friends, get into mischief, be the little boy you are, and forget your heart for the time being." He'd be dying sooner or later, after all. With a full-fledged grin he joined the game. True, he couldn't run very fast and had to rest a lot, but the others didn't mind.  
  
~~~  
  
"Guys! Lunch, you rapscallions!" Every head in the place immediately whipped towards the door, where Chizu and a few older girls were carrying out covered platters. Kiyoshi, stumbling and gasping, supported between Kin and Akiyama, but absolutely happy, was the last to arrive at the tables.  
  
Tora ended up next to him somehow. Her missing hand didn't seem to impede her eating, but it did make it harder to snatch food. Lunch among throngs of children can hardly be anything but a war zone. Kiyoshi was a little sorry for her, but not faring too well himself. Besides, she snarled at him when he tried to hand her a rice ball. Girls, he decided, were scary.  
  
After the great food wars drew to a close, and Kiyoshi felt a little less tired, he wandered off again. Playing and friends were a little wearying. He found himself at the pond again. For amusement's sake, he trailed his fingers in the water. A few of the larger (and, he supposed, if fish were anything like people, nastier) koi swam up and nibbled his fingertips a little. A tiny sigh of contentment escaped him.  
  
Suddenly, he sensed someone next to him. Kiyoshi looked up, and looked up, and looked up. He hadn't realized how tall Kin was, and seen from the ground by an undersized creature half his age, he was a giant. Kiyoshi stood and stepped back a few paces.  
  
Kin didn't seem to notice him. His enormous, mournful, blindingly blue eyes were unfocused but intense, locked on something even Kin might not see. Still, they weren't vacant. Kiyoshi's first impression, that the older boy was mentally slow, couldn't be right. Behind the spacey glaze lay a vicious intelligence and cunning, born of what must have been terrible hardship. He had the same air as the shifty, streetwise thugs Kisho had been friends with, but tempered with a strange innocence.  
  
Kiyoshi wondered if there was any significance in his ears being so long and pointed, his golden hair so floaty, his movements so perfectly synchronized and silent he could have been a. Being largely unfamiliar with sylvan fauna, Kiyoshi guessed deer.  
  
Suddenly, Kin seemed to come out of his trance. "You're from the ocean, aren't you?" His voice sounded so down-to-earth and ordinary.  
  
Utterly confused, Kiyoshi nodded. "How'd you know?"  
  
"You smell like the sea." He smiled, halfway between ethereal and earthy. "You might like this, then." He reached into a ragged leather pouch and drew out a smaller packet wrapped in what looked like leaves. Kiyoshi accepted it, puzzled.  
  
He gasped in surprise when he unrolled the crackling leaves. A seagull, about the size of his palm, lay on his hand. It was carved from some shiny, reddish hardwood, lovingly and with such exacting skill it looked like it would fly off any moment. Even more than its beauty, Kiyoshi was amazed at its resemblance to a toy his father had made for him shortly before he died, a glass gull of almost the same shape. That a master glassblower would trust his infant son with such a masterpiece amazed anyone who didn't know Kiyoshi. He had lost the treasured piece when he and Kisho had so abruptly left.  
  
"Th-thank you." He stared up at the older boy (for, he had realized, Kin was more than a few years older; for all his innocence and cuteness he was probably about thirteen) in something like adoration.  
  
"You lost your brother, someone told me," Kin half-whispered, gazing across the yard. "I think I had a brother once. I don't remember a lot, but I think I had a brother."  
  
Cradling his bird, Kiyoshi timidly reached for Kin's big but delicate hand. The older boy squeezed reassuringly. "You remind me of that bird." He mussed the already unruly loose curls on Kiyoshi's head and wandered off, returning to that spacey state that now seemed more divine than vapid.  
  
After Kin was gone, Kiyoshi tenderly slid the wooden gull into his pocket, dubbing it Sorano as he did so. He pulled off his worn shoes, hand-me-downs from Kisho, and dangled his feet in the water. The koi tickled a little, but he enjoyed it.  
  
He didn't know how long he'd been sitting there when there was a subdued splash to his right. He glanced over to find an enormous tortoiseshell cat batting at the water, trying clumsily for the darting fish he'd grown rather fond of in the last few hours. It was doubtful the awkward feline would catch any of them, but he was annoyed with it anyway.  
  
"Bad cat! Go away!" He twitched his hand in the cat's vague direction.  
  
What felt like a brick struck him in the back of the head and he spilled forward, almost falling into the pond. "Leave my cat alone!"  
  
He recognized the voice as Tora's, he turned ruefully, massaging the back of his head and glaring. "I just told it to go away. It was bothering the fish."  
  
"The fish are stupid! Like you!" She glared back ferociously, and he quailed while she turned her attention on the cat. "Poor Yukio. Let's get some fish from Chizu, kay? That's a good kitty."  
  
Kiyoshi, absurdly sensitive as he'd always been, spoke up. "I really didn't do anything. I like cats. I just thought he would-"  
  
"Shut up!" Tora snapped, still stroking the contented feline cradled in her arms. "Stupid boys."  
  
"Huh?" Kiyoshi didn't know a thing about girls, and wasn't aware of the childhood convention of generally despising the opposite sex until about twelve years of age.  
  
"You leave me and Yukio alone!" She stormed off, leaving an absolutely confused Kiyoshi behind.  
  
"She's weird," he observed to whoever might be listening.  
  
~~~  
  
Kiyoshi spent the next few hours staring into space at the pond's edge, occasionally taking out his little bird to admire it again. He only realized how much time had passed when Chizu's voice echoed across the lawn, calling everyone in for dinner.  
  
Kiyoshi stood slowly, wincing as he realized he'd let himself get sunburned. His pale complexion didn't mix well with late summer sunsets. He wandered back to the house being annoyed with himself.  
  
Supper turned out to be more structured an affair than lunch. Kiyoshi was the last to get in and found an empty seat next to Kin, who looked almost completely out of it but managed a small smile for him. Akiyama was on his other side, and Amida across the table.  
  
The latter didn't eat anything, except drinking half a glass of tea, but Akiyama had an amazing appetite for his size and wasn't especially considerate. If it hadn't been for Kin, Kiyoshi wouldn't have been able to snatch anything.  
  
By desert, the little cat boy had calmed down. "Hey, Kiyoshi, where'd you come from?"  
  
"By the Ocean. Asturian frontier." Kiyoshi didn't even know what the latter phrase meant, but Kisho always said it when asked the same question.  
  
"I'm from Zaibach."  
  
"Oh." That didn't mean much of anything to him, though he sort of thought he'd heard "Zaibach" before.  
  
"Just wonderin." He snatched a sugary concoction from a plate and threw it to Kiyoshi, who smiled even though he didn't have much of a sweet tooth. "How old're you?  
  
"Four."  
  
"I'm six. I think." He stopped to think for a moment. "Can you play chess?"  
  
"Not very well." His mother had taught him in an attempt to keep her sickly son amused.  
  
"But you can?" Akiyama's face lit up, and Amida smiled.  
  
"He lives for chess. And he's good, too," explained the spirit-boy.  
  
Akiyama nodded and blushed, for some reason. The conversation was halted by Chizu's sudden announcement: "Bedtime, you terrors!"  
  
Kiyoshi joined the march out of the large dining room, but Chizu stopped him and Akiyama. "There anyone in the bunk above yours, pussycat?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"Then that's yours, Kiyoshi. Show him, Aki."  
  
"Yes'm."  
  
As Akiyama led him away, Chizu smiled. "Well?"  
  
"I had fun," Kiyoshi whispered. "Lots." 


End file.
